Presently, one of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iOS 9’s most beneficial but hidden functionality is ready. It will serve users with the saving of storage space. After resolving the unexpected bug with the iCloud backend, Apple is giving out the “App Slicing” facility. The latter is integral to the bigger App Thinning set that allows developers to upload a single app to the App Store and to have only the relevant code for a specific device to be downloaded.
App Slicing makes sure that only the resources needed by a specific device is downloaded by the user. It slices images as per the resolution as well as device category. In the same fashion, it slices GPU resources as per hardware capability.
The good news about this functionality is that the app developers do not need to do anything different. They just have to upload the universal version of their apps to iTunes Connect. The App store takes care of the rest.
The feature was supposed to be incorporated with iOS 9 in September. However, Apple found a bug that reinstated the incorrect app variant for users moving from older devices to latest ones. Currently, the bug has been dealt with, and the functionality is ready to use.
Before the advent of iOS 9, developers would put up an iOS app that had all the code to work on any mobile device. Thus, the developers were able to cover all devices without having to create specific versions as per different devices.
The disadvantage here is was that an iPhone user had to download the apps universal version that included the code and assets useful only on other devices as well.
Talking about the bug fixes Apple announced that the problem affecting app slicing has been resolved, and device specific versions of applications will be supplied when the users using iOS 9.0.2 or later download it.
Sources: digitaltrends, slashgear
